# List of universal laws and axioms - part 2

## Communication-Specific

Betteridge's Law of Headlines - Any headline framed as a question can be answered with "no".

Brandolini's Law - Refuting lies takes dramatically more work than promoting them.

Celine's Second Law - Communication only happens among equals.

Chekov's Gun - Good stories remove all nonessential elements.

Chris Carter Effect - If people conclude others won't finish what they're trying to say, they'll stop paying attention.

Fleeting Demographic Rule - Most things are safe to repeat after a few years of not expressing it.

Frege's Principle - The meaning of a complex idea/expression is each meaning of its simpler expressions and the rules that combine it.

Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect - People will disbelieve a publication, but will believe the next article in that publication if they're not an expert in it.

NASCAR Theory - If nothing exciting is going on, people will find enjoyment in watching other people risk dying.

Norman Augustine's Ninth Law - Acronyms and abbreviations make simple ideas feel profound.

Price's Square Root Law - The square root of the total number of authors contribute half the content to a publication.

Sarnoff's Law - A broadcast network's value is proportional to its number of consumers.

Wiki Rule - Every interest, no matter how narrow, will attract people who will build a gigantic repository of information about it.

Wiio's First Law - Communication always fails, but sometimes looks like it doesn't.

Wiio's Second Law - People will always take things the worst possible way.

Wiio's Third Law - People understand your message better than you.

Wiio's Fourth Law - More communication creates more and faster confusion.

Wiio's Fifth Law - Mass communication is more focused on [appearances](image.md) than [reality](reality.md).

Wiio's Sixth Law - The more information travels, the less important it is.

Wiio's Seventh Law - The more important something is, the easier you'll forget something important about it.

Yoga Effect - An obscure, mundane trend somewhat connected to a religious culture will become more religious as later generations revisit the trend

## Economics-Specific

Baumol's Cost Disease - In low-productivity jobs, the workers can simply jump to higher-productivity jobs whenever they want more money, so hiring managers have to pay more for those jobs over time.

Efficient-Market Hypothesis - The general cost of things reflects all the information available to everyone.

Doctorow's Axiom - Any intermediary that adds value will decrease the value they add once they're established, first with their supplier, then with their consumer.

Elon Market Hypothesis - People invest in popular things because popular people invest in those popular things.

Hotelling's Law - Sometimes, competitors will try to make their products as identical as possible.

Levine's Boredom Markets Hypothesis - People make more exchanges if it's more fun and there's nothing else as fun.

Okun's Law - When unemployment goes up by 1%, everyone outputs goods and services less by 2%.

Substitution Effect - By paying people to not work and taxing people who do work, people will be twice as likely to not work.

Third-Party Payer Problem - When a third-party is involved in a two-party transaction, the costs slowly increase as the direct connection between the first two parties decreases.

Wagner's Law - The more [technology](technology.md) a country adopts, the bigger its [government](politics-systems.md) gets.

## Society/History-Specific

5% Rule - In any group, about 3-5% of people are absolutely horrible.

Briffault's Law - Women's [choices](people-decisions.md) in men determine what [families](people-family.md) are made.

Broken Windows Theory - Visible signs of crime or destruction (like broken windows) lead to further and worse of them.

Clarke's First Law - An old scientist is probably right about things that he says are possible, but probably wrong about those he says aren't.

Flynn Effect - Across decades, the average IQ scores of everyone in developing societies goes up.

Gompertz-Makeham Law of Mortality - When more people are dying of problems from old age, other deaths are statistically irrelevant.

Kranzberg's Fifth Law of Technology - While all history is relevant, technology history is most relevant.

Neuhaus' Law - If conventional things become optional, people eventually condemn them.

Norman Augustine's Tenth Law - Counterintuitively, bullfights are won by people, and people fights are won by lawyers.

Robin Hood Effect - If [rules](people-rules.md) are in place to redistribute [power](power.md), the powerful will redirect their efforts around those rules and the weaker will be hurt *worse* than if those rules weren't in place.

Seinfeld is Unfunny - Entertaining stories are less entertaining once they become popular.

Stigler's Law - Discoveries aren't named after their original discoverer.

Teeter's Law - The oldest language of a group of languages always happens to be the one you're an expert in.

Tytler's Civilization Cycle - Every free society cycles through bondage, to spiritual faith, to courage, to liberty, to abundance, to selfishness, to apathy, to dependence, and back to bondage

## Politics/Law-Specific

Celine's First Law - The more a government is concerned with national security, the more insecure everyone gets.

Celine's Third Law - Well-meaning politicians destroy nations.

Duverger's Law - Winner-take-all elections tend to create 2-party government systems, while proportional representation tends to create more.

Gibson's Law - Every expert has an equal and opposing expert.

Hauser's Tax Law - Federal tax receipts, since WWII, always seem to be 19.5% of the goods and services Americans produce.

Kranzberg's Fourth Law of Technology - While technology is critical for public issues, nontechnical things determine technology decisions.

Leftward Effect/Go Woke Go Broke - If an organization pushes an [ideology](values.md) that leans too far [left](politics-leftism.md) compared to its members, many of its members will leave.

O'Sullivan's First Law - Any organization that's not overtly right-wing/[conservative](politics-conservativeliberal.md) will trend leftward/liberal over time.

Streisand Effect - Hiding or removing information will often backfire and make it *more* public.